


The Green Hill

by StoneBarrett



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bittersweet, Depression, Hopeful Ending, POV Nonhuman, Personal Growth, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22363783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoneBarrett/pseuds/StoneBarrett
Summary: Even when things seem hopeless, we can still carry on.
Kudos: 2





	The Green Hill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ferris you wonderful idiot](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ferris+you+wonderful+idiot).



The sun shone bright on the green hill.  
It was a small hill, but steep enough to roll all the way to the bottom, and with a broad  
almost-flat cap.  
No one had rolled down the green hill in years, even though the grass was soft and short,  
and the ground was never muddy.  
No one even wanted to go near the green hill.  
It had always been a good place for people to gather and have fun. People had eaten  
lunches, played games, even fallen in love on the green hill. There had even once been a  
small, intimate wedding. No one was ever unhappy on the green hill.  
But now it stood alone, unvisited. No feet trampled the almost-flat cap, no wheels sped  
down the steep slopes, no lovers rested in the small hollow on the southern side that faced  
the wood.  
The green hill didn’t understand. It had always been the best hill it could. It kept its grass  
from growing wild, it never let ants build their own hills upon it. The green hill just wanted  
to be a place for people to be happy.  
The green hill liked to think about the last happy thing to happen on it. A boy, full of fear  
and a knot of shame twisting inside him, told his friend that he was in love with him. The  
green hill knew them both. They had played on the green hill many times, and it had seen  
them grow up into young men. The green hill heard as the best friend say how silly the boy  
was, didn’t he know that the best friend loved him too? The green hill rejoiced as the fear  
and shame was replaced with joy and excitement. The boy and his best friend took each  
other’s hands and lay on the slopes of the green hill and watched the stars.  
That had been many years ago.  
The green hill missed them. It missed being a place where people would gather.  
But the green hill didn’t think they’d ever be back.  
People had started to talk about how queer it was that the green hill stayed so soft, so  
green, so warm and dry. How eerie it was that bugs and wild animals seemed to never come  
near it. How unnerving it was that if you never seemed to get hurt on the green hill, even  
when you were sure you’d break a bone in a bad fall.  
Something was WRONG with the green hill. The green hill didn’t follow the same rules that  
the rest of the land did. Stay away from the green hill, it was a strange place.  
In the years it spent alone, the green hill thought about what it could have done wrong. It  
had only wanted to be the best hill for the people who lived nearby. It considered that,  
perhaps, it should let its grass grow long and wild and scratchy. Maybe it should let its  
ground grow muddy in the rain. It was possible the people would return if ants and wasps  
could sting them.  
The green hill even considered sleeping, and slowly drifting away back into the earth and  
leaving a flat plain. The wood could circle the place where the green hill once stood and  
make a clearing. Or perhaps the would simply march forth and grow over it, and there  
would be no sign that the green hill had ever been. And wouldn’t that itself be a good  
thing? The wood would be larger, and all the birds and bugs and little crawling rodents  
would have more room to live.  
But the wood heard the green hill, and insisted it would do no such thing. The wood had  
always looked on at the green hill, at the happiness it brought to the people. It had seen  
the love people found on the hill as the lay in the hollow on the southern side. The wood  
told the green hill of how the boy and his best friend would meet in the wood, wishing they  
could be together in the open like all the other couples on the green hill. The wood was  
where they would meet, but the green hill would always be the place in their hearts. And  
perhaps, the wood reasoned, the people were gone now, but one day they would return.  
Some weary traveler would need a place to rest. An aspiring artist would perch atop the  
green hill and draw what they could see from the almost-flat cap. People would learn to  
appreciate the green hill, the wood was certain. The green hill agreed that it should be the  
kind of hill it had always wanted to be, and should not change.  
And so, the green hill stood, and the sun shone down on it. It did not know if the people  
would return, but it stood, and it hoped. It listened to the stories the wood told of all the  
creatures that dwelt within. And it waited for the people. But every now and then, on the  
northern side that faced away from the wood, the green hill would get muddy in the rain.


End file.
